A California dad watched a “ball of fire” erupt just four houses from his home after his teenage daughter and her best friend were killed in a horrific crash involving two speeding cars.
Maddalyn Dailey, 17, and Isabell Hill, 16, were killed Friday night in Victorville when their Acura was struck by a yellow Chevrolet Camaro and a black Dodge Charger, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Cops are investigating whether the drivers were racing when they came barreling into the intersection.
Dustin Dailey had heard the garage door shut after Maddalyn left to drive Isabell home. She had promised to return for dinner.
Then came the engine noise.
Then the impact.
Dailey bolted toward Elmwood Drive and Ridgecrest Road, where he was met with a horrifying scene.
“I saw everything: the ball of fire from the other car that hit it, her car in pieces,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “They were ejected from it, thrown clear down the road.”
A fire official told Dailey the two girls probably never knew what hit them.
According to the California Highway Patrol, a Camaro slammed into the Acura first, leaving the vehicle badly damaged.
The Charger struck it next and sustained minor damage.
The Charger driver was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, according to the CHP. His identity was not released.
The Camaro driver, meanwhile, allegedly fled the scene — leaving behind a juvenile passenger who was later reunited with a parent.
Cops are still hunting for the hit-and-run driver.
A witness told investigators that both vehicles appeared to be speeding moments before the deadly wreck.
Authorities are now piecing together evidence to determine whether the drivers were racing — and whether the crash meets the criminal definition of street racing.
If confirmed, the deaths would add to Southern California’s deadly street-racing toll, which has claimed scores of lives over the past 20 years, the Times reported.
Dailey says Ridgecrest Road was a disaster waiting to happen.
The nearly two-mile stretch has few protected intersections, and a dip south of Elmwood Drive can hide approaching vehicles. Pulling out there, he said, is like “playing an old-school Frogger game.”
He has seen trucks race each other and kids doing wheelies on dirt bikes.
He had regularly warned Maddalyn to take another route.
“She’s usually pretty good about it,” he said, “because everybody that lives here knows that road is just a deathtrap.”
Victorville police warned about the problem in 2021 after arresting two teenagers accused of racing along Ridgecrest.
One reportedly reached 95 mph before spotting a patrol car.
Dailey also blames the area’s explosive growth. The high desert has attracted residents with relatively cheap housing compared with Los Angeles, but its roads have largely remained unchanged, he said.
“It’s just so crowded and so overpopulated with the little tiny roads that we still have from 1990,” he said. “Everywhere you go, people are racing to get to the other side of town.”
He plans to push for a traffic signal at the intersection and potentially have the stretch designated a safety corridor with targeted enforcement and stepped-up fines.
But for now, he is grieving two teenagers who had only just started their senior year.
Dailey described Maddalyn as compassionate and devoted to helping others.
After her death, another teenager told him she had shown him kindness during a dark moment and credited her with saving his life. “She lived life to the fullest,” her father said. “Just testing every inch of my body.” An online fundraiser described Isabell as “beautiful inside and out, sweet, funny, silly, smart, strong in her faith, and deeply loved by everyone fortunate enough to know her.”
Four days after the crash, Dailey said the initial flood of support had begun to fade. He kept walking past his daughter’s bedroom, seeing her dresser, makeup and jewelry.
He had seen movies about parents who lose children and preserve their rooms exactly as they were.
“Now I’m one of those parents that has one of those rooms,” he said in disbelief.
At her mother’s home, Maddalyn had scrawled Proverbs 3:5-6 across her bedroom door in black Sharpie.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” she’d written. “In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.”
Dailey plans to have the verse tattooed on himself this week.
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